


Day of the Dandelion

by moonstalker24



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Season 1, Baby Animals, F/M, Female Stiles Stilinski, Full Shift, Monster Alpha Peter Hale, Red Panda Stiles, Rule 63, dandelion fluff, i dont know what else to tag this as, kate gets hers, pack bonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstalker24/pseuds/moonstalker24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles is ten years old, she meets a certain wolf when she's playing in the woods. This changes everything. Fem!Stiles, Alt S1</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day of the Dandelion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HookerStiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HookerStiles/gifts).



> [HookerStiles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HookerStiles) asked me on tumblr: Heeelllooooo lovely!!! How I have missed your awesomeness! Now, I know you have red panda!Stiles in your IBDC series buuuuuuut! Not gonna lie, I would love it so much if this (Or something similar) was an individual fic, especially if it's all flooffy and cute ^_^ Or, even another fem!Stiles fic? Gotta say, your fic "The Choice" is still one of my, like, top 5 favourites <3
> 
> My instant reaction was Both! Both is Good! Then, after mulling it over for a couple of weeks, and then getting the [Love Goes On](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrI2NE44Wkc) song from the Disney animated Robin Hood, this is what I came up with. I also used the lyrics for the song in the fic. I am not ashamed.
> 
> All the thank yous to moonlightcalls, who read it over for me.

**Day of the Dandelion**

 

**_Love_ **

Stiles’ head comes up, ears flickering this way and that. It’s a beautiful spring day, the sun is warming her fur as she chases butterflies and pounces upon dandelions. She doesn’t get to do this very much anymore; be out in the forest enjoying the simple pleasures of being in her fur.

Mama’s been sick so much lately, and she can’t come with Stiles like she used to. Daddy’s never been able to change shape like Stiles and Mama can. Even if he could, he’s so busy. Between being a policeman and taking care of Mama, there’s no more time for fun.

Stiles doesn’t mind. Daddy is a hero, and she knows he loves her. She doesn’t mind that he’s spending all his spare time at the hospital with Mama. Stiles spends as much time as she can there too; but Stiles is ten. She’s incapable of sitting still that long.

Besides, Mama always tells her that she likes it best when Stiles is smiling and happy.

Stiles shakes her head, then gathers her little body and pounces on another patch of dandelions, sending a cloud of white fluff into the air. Simple joy suffuses her, chasing away the sadness and worry about Mama’s illness. She swishes her long, ringed tail, gathers herself, and pounces on the next patch of dandelions.

**_It seems like only yesterday_ **

Peter huffs to himself as he trots through the woods. He’s a grown man; a college graduate and he’s about to make partner at the firm. He resents being treated like some wayward cub. Talia may be the Alpha, and many years his senior, but Peter is the Pack Enforcer.

He’d _earned_ that title, thank you.

He’d chosen to walk the perimeter of their territory instead of listening to another of Talia’s lectures about being respectable and settling down. He’s barely twenty-five, he’s got plenty of time for a mate and cubs. Besides, it’s a beautiful day, who wants to be stuck indoors? The sun dappling through the trees is warming his dark gray coat as he goes, and the quiet peace of nature is just what he needs.

A noise somewhere off to his left makes him pause. His ears swivel, trying to catch it again. There’s a chittering sound, but that is definitely not a sound that a squirrel would make. Peter’s head tilts with curiosity, and he steps away from his intended path to investigate. As he moves through the trees he catches a scent. Whatever it is, it’s a little bit like rain and a little bit like anise, getting stronger the closer he gets. He’s downwind of his quarry, which means he’ll have the opportunity to observe.

He pauses at the edge of a clearing, looking around for the source of the noise. At first he sees nothing, just wild green and patches of dandelions. Then there is a flicker of movement. A flash of red, and that chittering noise again. He finds the creature making it.

Peter stares.

If he is not mistaken, that joyful ball of red and black fluff is a Red Panda. He blinks, but the vision doesn’t fade as the little creature chases dandelion seeds on its hind legs. Red Pandas are native to China aren’t they? How did one get all the way out here? Peter feels himself take a couple of steps into the clearing, and stops himself.

The panda loses its footing, falling over with a surprised noise and rolling several feet like a furry soccer ball. It sits up, shaking its head, eyes flashing beta gold.

Peter’s ears perk up with even greater interest. _It’s a were!_

She’s also a very young were by the look of her, and it is a she, Peter can smell that much. Smaller than the average red panda, her markings are still muddled as they are beginning to come through in definition. She makes that (honestly adorable) chirruping noise again, rolling onto her back to bat at the bits of dandelion drifting lazily through the air.

Peter is completely charmed despite himself.

He takes another couple of steps further into the clearing. Her scent is strong now, she’s been playing here for some time. He watches her roll to her feet and pounce on another patch of dandelions, sending another flurry of white into the air.

She catches sight of him then, freezing with fright and indecision. Peter lowers his head, making himself appear less threatening. He flares his bright gold beta eyes at her, making her own flash back at him. Her curiosity is captured immediately. She makes a ridiculously adorable inquiring noise and takes a few tentative steps toward him.

Peter chuffs in response, and steps carefully forward to meet her, telegraphing his movements so as not to cause her fear. She continues toward him. They meet in the middle, and wolf and panda touch noses in greeting.

**_You were just a child at play_ **

The big gray wolf eventually lays down, and Stiles takes it as tacit permission to explore her new friend. Mama had told her about the family of wolves that live in town. Wolves that can change shape just like Stiles and Mama, but Stiles has never seen one for herself before.

She chitters at him, practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect of making a new friend. She circles him once to look at him from all angles, and then uses her dexterous front paws to investigate his face and ears. He heaves a big breath at her, then nudges her with his nose. She makes another excited noise, unable to help herself.

Maybe he will play with her?

She climbs up his side until she is perched on his shoulders. She takes in the world from her new vantage point while he watches her with amused blue eyes. She chirrups at him, and pulls on his ears playfully. He growls, but it isn’t a mean, hostile growl. No, it’s playful. He twists suddenly, sending Stiles tumbling off his back with a yelp. When she hits the ground, another cloud of dandelion fluff erupts into the air. She sneezes once, and then darts away from him.

He levers himself to his feet and chases after her.

He lets her win their game of chase. Then he settles in the grass by a tree and watches her chase a butterfly. She brings him a pretty pinecone, and then snuggles into the space between his paws, settling in like she owns the space. He’s surprised when she rubs her cheek to his, sharing scents. Stiles doesn’t know why, that’s what friends do.

Eventually he scents her back, much to her enjoyment, and they settle down for a nap.

**_Now you’re all grown up inside of me_ **

Stiles hears about the Hale fire; but Stiles is ten, and her mother is sick. The information is vaguely interesting, but not enough to distract her. Her new wolf friend stops coming to meet her in their clearing around the same time as Mama gets worse.

And then Mama is gone.

Her mother is dead and there is a huge gaping hole inside her where the bond to her used to be, and Stiles can’t be here anymore. She flees the hospital room at the same time as the nurses and doctors flood into it to try to revive Claudia Stilinski. No one is watching the little girl, no one thinks to.

No one will miss her for several hours.

She finds herself wandering the hospital until she comes to the long term patient wing. She doesn’t want to see people who are stuck here like her mother was, so she moves to leave; but then she smells it. Lightning and dark, wet earth. She knows that scent.

She follows it.

She has to dodge around the nurses, but she’s pretty skinny for her age, so she manages to hide from them. Eventually she comes to a room, 3408C, and pushes it open gently. She steps inside, waiting for the door to close quietly behind her, and then creeps around the curtain to get a look at the room’s occupant.

There’s a man lying on the bed. Half his body is covered in bandages, and the smell of burnt flesh makes Stiles gag. She stops moving forward to stare at him. The scent of her wolf friend is in this room. It doesn’t make sense. Unless the man on the bed _is_ her wolf.

He must be a Hale.

She creeps closer to the bed, going up onto her tiptoes next to it to peer at him. She squeaks in surprise when her eyes meet the gaze of a single, pain hazed blue one. She ducks down, shoulders around her ears, breathing hard. It’s not until after she’s collected herself that she can look back up at him.

He’s still gazing at her.

She knows those eyes. Those blue, blue eyes that she thinks are so pretty.

She wonders if he’s got holes where his family used to be, like the hole she has where Mama was. She reaches out tentatively, pausing because she doesn’t want to cause her wolf more pain, and then brushes her fingers gently against the exposed skin of his unburned arm.

His eyes flash bright gold, and she feels her own flashing in response. She turns and pulls a chair up close to the bed. The she ducks down and gets out of her clothes so that she can shift. Once she’s stretched out her tail, she hops up onto the chair and then climbs carefully up onto the bed. Stiles crawls up close to press against his shoulder and neck. She can see the recognition in his eyes, so she scents him by rubbing her furry cheek gently against his unbandaged one.

The she curls up in the curve of his neck, careful to curl her tail around herself instead of draping it over him. She doesn’t want to cause more pain. His eyes close as the drugs in his system drag him down.

Stiles feels calmer, less like she’s going to rattle out of her skin just because Mama is gone. In that place inside her, where her bond to Daddy is, where the bond to Mama is no longer, a new one appears. It’s small, and weak, but Stiles gently takes it into her awareness, feeding her strength into it to help it grow.

Her wolf needs the energy more than she does.

On the other end of the connection, Peter latches onto the only pack bond he can feel. Knows it’s this tiny panda curled up by his head. The pain dulls some, and the gratitude he feels at not being alone floods through him.

They both sleep.

**_Oh, how fast those moments flee_ **

She visits every chance she can get in the months (years) that follow. When she isn’t with her Dad or Peter, she’s constantly fretting over her bonds with them. Frequently checking that they are still there, worried that they’ll vanish just like her mother’s did.

During this time she meets a boy named Scott in school. He’s a little bit of a dork, but then so is she. They like a lot of the same things, and his Dad just left. It isn’t like how her mother left, but it gives both of them a sense of solidarity. Scott is a good friend.

Scott is her only friend.

Dad buries himself in his work. He still takes the time to eat with Stiles every day, to check on her. But he’s in pain and so is she, and it’s the same pain, so it’s hard to comfort each other. Her concern over him comes out in teaching herself to cook and changing the way they eat in an attempt to keep him healthy.

Peter’s body heals. The scars are ugly, and he has to have several surgeries so that he doesn’t lose mobility in his limbs. Through it all he remains comatose. Stiles knows he is there for the fierce way he clings to the bond between them. Stiles isn’t a wolf; she can’t take his pain. She can, however, give him bits of her energy.

When she feels joy she shares the feeling with him. When she thinks of him, she shares how much she loves him. She pushes thoughts and feelings down the bond so that he won’t feel so alone.

It never does anyone any good at all to feel alone.

**_Once we watched a lazy world go by_ **

Stiles shakes her head to clear out the cobwebs, and scowls at Jackson. She's surrounded by idiots. She is trapped in school (a place she hates with a burning passion) in the middle of the night, being pursued by a crazed alpha; and she just had to go and surround herself with idiots.

It's all happening so fast. Scott, despite being a werewolf now (and therefore being allowed to know Stiles' own panda-shaped secret), is still his giant doofy self. Jackson and Lydia are still Stiles' least favorite people (and the bane of her existence). No matter how often they unknowingly get themselves into the middle of a supernatural kerfuffle.

Don't even get her started on Derek Hale.

She knows for a fact that Derek Hale is a jackass to nth degree. Not only does he keep shoving Stiles around with were strength (when for all he knows, she's just human), but he also abandoned Peter. He's got no clue what's really going on, he doesn't want to know, and all of Stiles' prey animal instincts are screaming at her not to trust him.

And her instincts are screwed up considering her _person_ is a wolf.

A wolf she's beginning to suspect is the Alpha currently hunting them through the school.

Things had shifted recently. A few months ago Peter had shown signs of getting better, and then all she could feel from him was disbelief, anger and fear; then there was nothing. His side of the bond became quiet. She had absolutely flipped her lid. She'd ditched the rest of school that day to sneak into the hospital to see him.

But there he was, sitting in his chair, staring out the open window.

The connection between them had lit up like fireworks the second she'd stepped into the room. He knew she was there, so she had stayed. She'd shifted and curled up in his lap, tucked as close as she could, trying to hide her worry from him.

That had just been the beginning though. Suddenly there were dead bodies and hunters and werewolves.

So here Stiles is, thinking mean thoughts at Derek Hale (screw him; and his eyebrows), who might very well be dead. Allison looks like she's going to throw up, and Jackson hasn't stopped being a condescending little shit - Like he's the one that knows what's going on. She manages to contain her scoff, barely.

This arguing isn’t going to get them anywhere. Jackson won’t listen to Stiles and Scott by merit of them being on the loser end of the spectrum. Lydia has never actually looked directly at Stiles, and she can’t see why the redhead would start now. Allison just looks like she doesn’t want to be here. Stiles can’t blame her.

"We need a different plan," she says in an aside to Scott.

He nods in agreement, because the others aren't listening to them.

The plan they come up with isn't exactly genius level... but they all somehow manage to survive the experience. Jackson, Lydia and Allison escape with nary a scratch, and without being let in on the big wolf-shaped secret. Stiles recognizes Peter's scent under the layers of pissed off Alpha, and she can't help peering into the boiler room after they manage to lock him in there.

When she and Scott are driving away from the school in Roscoe, she clutches at the steering wheel with white knuckles and wonders what happened to her gentle gray wolf. She had thought (maybe in her childish innocence) that she was enough to help him. To keep him sane and with her.

Was her wolf gone? Was that why the bond was so quiet?

**_Now the days seem to fly_ **

Stiles somehow convinces her Dad to reopen the Hale Fire case. She isn't sure how she does it. She remembers crying about how Peter is all alone and doesn't he deserve some justice? Dad probably figures out that she's formed a bond with Peter, but he doesn't make her say it. Dad is human, he knows the bonds are there, but he's never been able to feel them. He'll never quite understand what it means, no matter how many times Stiles tries to explain it.

It's a relief to not have to lie to her father. Not really. It's more by omission now. He knows, but he doesn't ask, he just makes sure that she and Scott are as safe as they can be in the current climate. Stiles is grateful for that, because she knows if he asks she'd tell him everything.

_Everything._

It's dark. The moon is a waning sliver in the sky, and it's cold out. Stiles creeps through the brush, crunching leaves under her feet and making herself cringe. It's probably after midnight, but she can't wear a watch in her panda form, so she can only guess. She's cautious of the shadows as she makes her way toward what she still considers to be their clearing. There are wolves and hunters about.

Strange how after everything, the hunters still scare her more.

She's grown into her fur now. Bright red and black, the rings on her tail prettily pronounced, and a fine mask of white around her face. Her breaths come out in little puffs of steam against the cold of the night. She pauses by the trunk of a tree when she reaches her destination, then moves into the moonlight.

She's so sick of being Scott's all-things-were guru. It's only been a month and a half since he was turned and she wants to scream and shake him. He won't accept what he is, and he's so clouded by Allison (an _Argent_ , for cripes sake) that he won't listen to her... Not like she knows anything about being a wolf. She's an actual facts red panda, not a wolf, thanks much.

If he won't accept what he is, he'll never be able to form pack bonds. Which means that the tentative bond that had begun between Stiles and Scott is gone now, because he was different.

She misses her friend.

There's a deep rumbling growl from the shadows. Stiles' entire being freezes up with the instinct to run. Run far away from that growl. Instead, she makes herself turn.

There, by the tree she had paused next to, is the huge, hulking form of the Alpha. He's growling lowly and watching her with burning, furious ruby eyes.

Her wolf. Her Peter.

**_Life is brief, but when it’s gone_ **

He inhales deeply, sides heaving as he takes in as much of that scent as he can. He knows that scent. Something warm uncoils in his chest as the little red and black creature turns to face him. It's eyes are burning brightly gold.

Beta. But not a wolf.

The human part of him; the part that answers to Peter and knows that scent like he knows his own, screams out of the depths of his unconscious when the Alpha takes a step toward her. He stops, curious as to what could possibly be more important right now than eating or revenge.

The little creature fluffs up, appearing bigger than she actually is, and chirrups at him. It's a forlorn, pleading sound.

He knows that sound.

Suddenly the last few years come roaring back. He growls in pain as the loss of his pack comes to the forefront. The pain of the fire and the burning that never stops. Amongst all these sensations is the piece of him that makes him Peter, growing stronger as it forces him to remember. Then he feels it. It crashes in around him, flooding him with warmth.

She's _his_.

She chirrups again, cautiously stepping toward him. She can feel the bond opening up too. Can feel him again just like he can feel her. The Alpha latches onto that single pack bond with all of it's not inconsiderable strength.

The only bond that stayed. The only bond that eased the pain.

She makes a soft sound, like she's pleading with him. Peter (that's his _name,_  he can _remember_ now) relaxes. He's hulking and gigantic, but there's something different too. The monster in his visage is lessening, he looks more like a wolf.

He chuffs at her, taking a couple of steps forward.

She pounces.

**_Love goes on and on_ **

Stiles can see the moment Peter is there in his eyes. The second she sees that familiar look in his gaze, she launches herself at the gigantic black shadow he's become.  

The bond between them is once again wide open, and she can feel him. She's vibrating with her joy as he lets her pounce and (impossible for her to do otherwise) take him to the ground. He's careful of her form. She's no bigger than the average house cat, despite her long tail. She chirps and scents him happily.

Even better, he scents her back.

She settles into the space between his front paws, settling her own front paws on the side of his face and setting her nose on his. He makes a noise, and his wolfy features are distinguishable in the light of the moon.

She pushes how much she's missed him down the bond. Then, thinking that it might make him retreat, shoves as much of her love down it after that as she can. He grunts, ears going back with shame, and then forward at the flood of how much she loves him.

His tail wags, and he curls around her tighter, sending his apologies to her. She forgives him. Of course she forgives him, but...

Stiles wiggles around, creating enough space, and then promptly shifts into her human shape. She buries her blush at her nakedness in his fur as he scents her human shape by rubbing his face across the backs of her shoulders.

"Don't ever do that," she tells him, pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes. "You can't leave me like that. I need you."

Between one blink and the next the Alpha shrinks into the form of a man she knows. The entire right side of his body is covered in burn scars, the other half is still as handsome as he ever was. His hair is getting long, she notices. She’ll need to cut it soon. His eyes are pained and blue, and so very very mournful. His hand comes up to cradle the side of her face, and she cradles his wrist in both of her hands.

“Stiles,” he murmurs. It’s the first time she’s ever heard his voice.

It’s the first time she’s ever heard his voice, and they’re both naked in the middle of the woods.

“Stiles,” he says again, voice a little stronger, “My Stiles.”

She lets him pull her into his arms, blushing when their bodies press together, but wrapping her own arms around him. She breathes in his scent, can feel and hear him doing the same.

Contentment flows through her.

**_Love will live_ **

Peter bends the instinct and power of the Alpha inside him to his will. Once upon a time that will was iron; with Stiles at his side, it is again. The burning hate for Kate Argent, for the need for revenge is still burning deep within him. Now though, he can see the other paths. The other ways to get that revenge other than just killing everything and anything in his path.

So he lets her take him to her father.

The Sheriff stares at him for a long time. Peter is sitting calmly on a stool in the middle of the Stilinski kitchen clad in a pair of John’s sweats and an old Sheriff’s Department t-shirt. He’s got a towel over his shoulders, and he’s letting Stiles cut his hair.

Like they do it all the time.

For all John knows, they do. He’s not stupid, he knows Stiles has been visiting the other were for years. He’s let her, because what could it have hurt her to visit someone who had no one? It let John know where his kid was, and hopefully did some good for both her and the man she was visiting.

He has a sudden vision as he stands there watching her run her hands through Peter Hale’s hair, of her doing this in years to come. Doing things like this years after she’s left the protection of her father’s house and made her own way in the world.

He cuts off that line of thought before he has a stroke.

“I’m not going to like this conversation, am I?” he demands.

“Nope,” Stiles tells him succinctly.

John gets out the whiskey.

**_Love will last_ **

Chris Argent is cleaning his weapons when there comes a pounding on his front door. A glance at the clock reveals that it’s after nine in the evening. He wonders who could possibly be knocking on his door this late. It’s not civil. He leaves the gun cage and heads for the door, reaching the stairs at the same time as Allison.

Victoria beat them both to it. She pulls open the front door to find the Sheriff and several deputies standing on their doorstep.

“Can I help you, Sheriff?” Victoria asks tensely.

“I’m sorry to disturb you this late, Mrs. Argent,” the Sheriff says apologetically. “I’m looking for Kate.”

“My sister?” Chris asks, stepping up next to his wife. “What do you need her for?”

Stilinski looks apologetic, but determined. He holds out a piece of paper, “This is a warrant for her arrest, Mr. Argent.”

Victoria is the one who takes the sheet and unfolds it. She inhales sharply and looks up at Stilinski, “This says she’s wanted for murder.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stilinski nods. “Peter Hale woke up, his statement and the corroborating evidence we’ve found since reopening the case is enough to prove that Ms. Argent was the one who set the Hale house on fire seven years ago.”

Chris can hear Allison gasp behind him, but it feels like it’s coming down a long tunnel. He’s always known what Kate is capable of, but he can only imagine what she did to get the information she needed.

“She -” Chris clears his throat and meets Stilinski’s eyes, “She went out, she didn’t say where.”

“I see,” the Sheriff gestures at the deputies behind him, “Do you mind if I leave a couple of deputies here to wait for her?”

“No, no of course not.”

**_Love goes on and on and on_ **

“Stiles?”

Stiles smiles at Scott. She knows this is a strange situation. Knows that having a strange man at her back is making him suspicious, but there’s too much going on to just leave him in the dark. Besides, he’s her best friend. He kind of deserves some answers.

“Hey, Scottie,” she offers him a smile.

“Who’s your friend?” Scott asks.

“This is Peter,” Stiles gestures at the man. He takes that as his cue to step forward. He gives Scott a nod, and sets one hand against the small of Stiles’ back. “He’s a werewolf.”

Scott stares. Stiles can tell that he’s fascinated despite himself. “You’re a werewolf?”

“Yes,” Peter says. There’s a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, but he manages to contain it. “I believe you’ve met my nephew, Derek.”

“You’re a Hale?” Scott demands. “I thought they were all dead.”

“Not quite.”

Stiles shakes her head, “Scott, look, can you sit down? We need to talk to you, but you’ve got to promise to listen before you say or do anything.”

Scott eyes her, “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Not even remotely.”

She’s right. In fact, he doesn’t like it. He hates it.

**_Once we watched a lazy world go by_ **

The manhunt for Kate Argent goes state wide before Stiles manages to pin down Derek long enough to get a word in edgewise. Scott is avoiding her, miffed (beyond miffed) that he’s going to be a werewolf forever - and all because he was basically in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stiles gets it, Scott needs time. So Stiles tracks down Derek in the meantime.

It’s not exactly easy, but also easier than she anticipated.

“Hey, moron!” she yells at his back when he turns to walk away from her. He doesn’t like her at the best of times, now is no exception. The fact that she’s invaded his house without a by your leave has got to piss him off.

She’s right. He turns on her, snarling, eyes bright electric blue.

She’s had enough and flares her own eyes at him in reply, taking him aback for just long enough to snap out: “Peter’s awake. He’s staying with us in case you wanted to see him or something.”

She turns on her heel and stalks out of the house. This is the last time she tries to do something nice for the likes of Derek Hale. It’s not like Peter has much inclination to see the nephew that basically abandoned him to rot in the hospital anyway. Stiles just thinks it’s sad that Derek is all alone now, especially after everything he’s been through.

She goes home. She goes home to the house that now contains her entire family. Her Dad was reluctant at first, but he and Peter had talked it out. Really talked it out. They’d even made her leave the house for the duration. So Peter is living in what used to be the spare room that Grandma sleeps in whenever she visits.

Peter is chopping zucchini when she gets home. He raises an eyebrow at her grumpy expression, but she doesn’t say anything. She walks across the kitchen and wraps herself around his back, making a grumpy sound into his shoulder.

“Went that well, did it?” Peter asks. “Should I be worried he’s going to try and kill me in my sleep?”

“He’ll probably show up in an hour,” Stiles mutters into his shirt. “Him and his eyebrows of doom.”

Peter laughs at the remark, and turns to cradle Stiles in his arms. He runs a hand through her short hair and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Why don’t you go change? I can handle Derek. Even with those eyebrows.”

Stiles nods and heads for the stairs. “They’re like grumpy caterpillars,” she says before vanishing up the stairs, making Peter laugh again.

He’s got enough time to add the zucchini to the sauce he’s making before Stiles is back in the kitchen. He only notices because she sets her claws into the leg of his pants and starts to climb. He looks down at her, amused, and says: “That’s not what I meant by change, darling girl.”

Stiles makes one of her chirruping noises at him as she climbs up from his waist to drape herself around his neck. He sighs with amusement, but lets her stay where she is. He brushes her tail back over his shoulder and returns to cooking.

**_Now the days seem to fly_ **

Derek doesn’t knock when he reaches the Stilinski house. He just goes inside. He figures Peter will have heard him coming. He isn’t expecting the Sheriff to be sitting at the kitchen table when he barges into a house that isn’t his, but it’s too late to change his mind and kock first.

The Sheriff just looks at him with raised eyebrows. Peter cocks his head to one side, then goes back to getting plates out in order to set the table.

“What the hell is that?” Derek demands once he gets a good look at the critter draped around his uncle’s neck like a particularly fuzzy scarf. Said critter looks up from where it was lazily grooming Peter’s hair to glare at him.

“I’ll thank you not to speak about my daughter in that tone of voice,” the Sheriff says mildly.

Derek gapes. Peter smirks at him and offers Stiles (that’s _Stiles_?!) what looks like a chunk of zucchini. Peter takes his stack of plates and begins to set the table.

“Get some glasses, would you?” he requests.

Derek is just weirded out enough to actually go looking for the glasses. He continues to stare at Stiles. “What is she?”

“She’s a Red Panda,” Peter tells him, now placing forks and knives next to the plates. “Beautiful, isn’t she.”

Stiles makes a pleased crooning noise and rubs her cheek against Peter’s. Derek continues to stare, feeling as if he’s having some kind of out of body experience. John levers himself up to retrieve a pitcher of some kind of juice from the fridge and starts pouring juice into the cups after Derek sets them down on the table.

“Will you be joining us for dinner, Stiles?” John asks.

She chirrups an affirmative and jumps from Peter’s shoulder to the counter, then to the ground and vanishes from sight. Derek sits in the chair John points him at, very confused.

Peter meets his very confused gaze with one that is more compassionate than Derek is used to. It makes the surreal feeling he’s experiencing worse. “We’ll talk after dinner,” Peter tells him. He nods.

Stiles appears at the bottom of the stairs, human again, just as Peter is setting dinner on the table.

It’s the strangest meal Derek has ever eaten.

**_Life is brief, but when it’s gone_ **

It’s spring again. The trees are leafy, the ground carpeted in green. Stiles is happy. She bounds across the clearing with joy to pounce on the big black wolf dozing in the sun. Peter huffs and turns to look at her. She nudges him, then rubs their cheeks together.

The dandelions are all in bloom, though few of them have gone to seed. It’s early in the season. It’s still a little chilly, but the clearing has seen plenty of its two most regular visitors.

Stiles settles herself into the hollow between Peter’s front paws, draping her tail over one of them. She’s happier now than she’s been in a long time; and if the contentment humming down the bond from the Alpha is any indication, so is Peter.

Kate Argent is dead. She had decided that death by cop was better than life in prison. Neither of the two weres could bring themselves to feel bad about her death. Derek was slowly accepting everything that had happened. Accepting his uncle’s role in the events of the past year, and his own. The relationship is mending slowly.

The pack bond is new and tentative, but Stiles knows it will grow with time.

Scott hasn’t been willing to forgive Peter yet, but he will eventually. Scott doesn’t have it in him not to. Stiles expects another pack bond before they go back for their senior year at Beacon Hills High. Until then, they’ll continue to give Scott the space he needs.

Until then… well, Stiles is content to bask in the sunshine, and in the love she can feel coming from Peter. She returns it in equal measure.

Their love, after all, was the only thing neither of them ever questioned.

**_Love goes on and on_ **


End file.
